I left work around 5:30 PM and decided to get some photos of the tail-end storm near Fort Cobb. Since the storms in the area had formed on the cold front, I did not expect anything from them other than some hail and maybe wind. Of course a tornado did happen, and passed about a quarter mile from my house in far south Oklahoma City.

My first all-day chase of the season was in southwest Oklahoma for a moderate-risk setup that looked promising for tornado chances. I began waiting for storm initiation near Snyder about 2:00 PM. Had gotten a call from work that a CNN crew was in Norman and wanting to embed with someone for the day, so I stayed there waiting on them even as a storm was developing and moving our way from Vernon, Texas. We intercepted the storm south of Frederick and stayed with it all the way past Lawton until the CNN Suburban somehow got two flat rear tires. We worked to try and resolve this as the second tornado warned storm was approaching our location and doing damage in Lawton. We were finally able to get the tires fixed thanks to the locals in Sterling, and made our way back to Norman by 10:00 PM

First chase of the year, left work at 4:00 PM to towers developing just southeast of the office. A chance to make sure my equipment has been installed correctly and to try out this year's new HD video camera. Unfortunately there was nothing video-worthy to be seen this day. Made my way to just east of Asher and waited and watched as storms would develop to the west, then move north and dissipate in the colder, dry air up there.

Started the day in Dodge City. Stopped off in Greensburg, Kansas for a little while to see how the recovery was going there. After that, stopped in Buffalo, Oklahoma to await thunderstorm initiation. After a storm fired to the west I made my way to near Laverne and set up to watch, about 10 miles east of the storm. It didn't move much. Updrafts struggled to keep going. Winds were nearly calm where I was, and I imagine surface inflow to the storm was pretty weak. The anvil did produce some spectacular mamatus clouds, though!

After spending the night in Dumas, Texas, I headed north to hopefully catch some storms later in the day in the area around the west end of the Oklahoma Panhandle. I spent most of the day sight-seeing in clear, hot skies, checking out the Black Mesa area. Storms finally stared to develop in New mexico about 2:30, so I made my way west for an intercept. The storms were high based and fairly weak. Cell service on Verizon was mostly nonexistent out there, so I was operating visually most of the afternoon. Attempting to stay ahead of the dominant storm, I took some dirt farm road (trail) north and eventually found pavement again in Colorado. I stayed with the storm all the way until I got to Kansas before giving up for the the evening.

Left Oklahoma City targeting the north Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles. Got to Guymon, OK before heading south to intercept a storm forming on the Oklahoma/Texas border west of Texhoma. As this storm began to weaken, I went south again to a storm west of Harley, Texas. I ended up on the only road west, a dirt road, and raced to get southwest of the storm before it overtook the road. Met up with Ben Holcomb south of the storm. His truck was overheating, so I stayed with him until we got east of the storm. We parted as he was headed back to Oklahoma City. I spent the night in Dumas, maybe the nicest (brand new) Hampton Inn I'd ever stayed in.

Technical failures left me frustrated and took my attention away from taking photographs this day. Meager storms added to my frustration. Left Oklahoma City targeting Woodward. Storms developed from there southward into the Texas Panhandle. I dropped south and intercepted a storm north of Sayre. Followed it east to the town of Cordell before breaking off and heading home.

Began the day in Kearney, Nebraska. Went south to initial target in Phillipsburg, Kansas, but soon realized the dryline was passing and any chances of severe weather would be farther east in the higher dewpoint temperatures. Ended up waiting south of Smith Center until a storm formed to my southwest. Followed it north-northeast and saw intermittent wall clouds along the way. Stopped and let it continue once I got just west of Smith Center, and waited for another storm approaching from the southwest. This storm looked good, but never showed any signs of rotation. After it passe my location I made the long drive back to Oklahoma City.

This was our only day out for our WDT chase. Conditions were just not conducive for storms, but we went out anyway for a marginal risk. Initial target was the north Texas Panhandle so we drove west from Oklahoma City to lunch in Pampa at The Yellow Rose steakhouse. After lunch a check of conditions let us know we needed to go north for any storms. We re-targeted to Boise City, Oklahoma, but on the way a storm developed a little farther north in Kansas, so we made our way there instead. The storm was mainly a rain and lightning producer, but we did see multiple long-lived gustnadoes and even drove into one.

This collection is of the numerous tornadoes in south central Nebraska on June 20, 2011. We began the day in York, Nebraska, just seven or eight miles from where these tornadoes formed. After waiting there all day for thunderstorms to develop, we dropped south and west of York to intercept developing thunderstorms south of interstate 80. From there we followed the storm north as it produced multiple tornadoes.

Accompanied by Ben Holcomb, we left Colby, Kansas in the morning and headed towards northeast Colorado. Storms fired early and we intercepted out first storm northwest of Sterling. We followed this storm northeast into Nebraska witnessing some incredible structure and color. This storm became very outflow dominant, so we headed south to intercept a new storm near Sedgwick, CO. New storms were developing to our east in Nebraska, and we were expecting to chase storms in eastern Nebraska the next day, so we decided to head that way. We missed the tornado near dark in McCook by about 20 minutes. Ended up spending the night in York, only seven miles from where we'd see the first of many tornadoes the next day.

Day one of our annual WDT storm chase. We left Norman, OK early and headed up to Kansas for a very slight chance of thunderstorms. Waited much of the afternoon in Russell, looking for anything to develop. Finally a weak storm formed to our north, so we made the decision to drive up for a closer look. That storm dissipated shortly after we arrived, but more storms wer developing to our south so we turned around and headed that way. It was clear there would be no severe weather that day, so we pulled off the road to watch a couple of photogenic storms to our south and west near Great Bend. After that we drove to Dodge City to spend the night.

These are some of the "Bags of Crap" I was able to acquire on the woot.com website. They are rarely offered, sellout in minutes, and are somewhat difficult to purchase before they sell out. Usually they are offered towards the end of a Woot-Off. What's that? Read about it here: http://www.woot.com/WhatIsWoot.aspx#q9